310MC Research & Development

Another project, that myself, Mike and Sid took on for part of our professional experience module was to work in conjunction with 2nd year Journalism students to provide coverage of the International Sports Conference, Play the Game. This took place between 8th-12th June 2009 in the Coventry Cathedral and numerous other lecture theater’s in the University complex. This was a great opportunity for us to get experience in working in a live newsroom, producing work to a tight deadline and gaining an insight into the journalist side of media.

Over the week we managed to produce a total of 21 videos all related to different speakers, exposing the weeks top stories and gathering peoples reaction and opinion on what is seen as one of the most controversial conferences in the world of sport. Play the Game, is the only sports conference to openly discuss and debate the “dirty underbelly” of sport with representatives from world wide sporting bodies in attendance. The main topics of discussion this year were focused around doping and match fixing, with numerous other topics debated throughout the week.

This project was not only an opportunity to continue improving our skills with production equipment but also a great chance to gather international contacts in the journalism and live feed coverage field. Throughout the week we met numerous influential and leading representatives of a variety of different sporting and governing bodies. They ranged from retired athletes, IOC committee  members, Presidents of different sporting commissions and even a former mob boss.

Here is a selection of the video’s we produced during the week.

Michael Franzese - Former Mob Boss

An interview with Greg LeMond - Former Tour de France cyclist

An interesting point that we have found out about this video, is that the athlete, Lance Armstrong viewed this piece over the week and posted his reaction to it on his Twitter page, branding Greg LeMond a liar as he claimed that Armstrong had taken performance enhancing drugs throughout his career.

William Galliard - UEFA representative

Richard Pound – Former Anti-Doping Agency President

A video of numerous delegates giving their opinion of PTG 09

These videos are just a brief glimpse of the standard and variety of pieces we produced during the week. We worked very closely with the Journalism students and CUToday team and learnt so many new skills through both outlets. This project was a great success and provided me with a good solid project to put on my showreel. I will leave you with a final video we produced at the end of the week which is the views of everyone that worked for CUToday during the conference.